To Plan or Not to Plan...

(This post is an elaboration that I started to write yesterday after someone asked a few questions in the comments of yesterdays post that I thought were good, but that I also thought could probably fill it's very own post.  Hopefully this clarifies a little what works for our family!  It's not meant to be a road map for anyone else, it's just a post on the conclusions that our family has reached for our family and an explanation of sorts that was aimed to answer questions raised both by yesterdays post and that I've encountered in the past!)

Sometimes I almost forget that even among practicing Catholics, that is, people who believe what the Church teaches to be true and attempt to implement those teachings in their lives, we're still kind of weird.

There are various groups with various stances on the whole birth control topic among those who self-identify as Catholic and they run through a range from one end of the spectrum to the other.  There are those who use birth control and don't know the Church teaches that it's wrong. There are those who use birth control, know that the Church teaches that it's a sin and don't let it effect their decision.  There are those who have taken more permanent measures, taking the question off the table altogether.  Some come to regret the decision and some don't.  And then there are those who've accepted the Church's teaching prohibiting artificial contraception, whether joyfully or fearfully (or with a wide range of emotions in between), who then looked at the other options when looking towards the future.

Some people use Natural Family Planning (NFP for short) to space births, hopefully discerning whether they have a serious reason to avoid pregnancy (I say hopefully only because I was in a group once where the topic came up and there were a surprising number of women who said they had never been told that they were supposed to have any reason whatsoever to avoid.  They absolutely seemed very genuine, and I do believe they were, so I thought I'd throw that in here, for anyone who's never heard that we actually are supposed to have a reason...).

And some people don't use NFP.

No I'm not talking about people who don't use NFP who use other methods.  I'm talking about people who don't use NFP or artificial means to space births.

Usually in the little online Catholic world I feel like I have a lot in common with most of my online friends.  But I also always feel a little weird when the topic of NFP comes up, and no, it's not because I'm judging you.

It's because people can get kind of disparaging about people who don't use NFP.  Somewhere along the line, amid all the cheerleading for NFP, some corners of the internet began to basically see it as a requirement and something that "responsible" people do.

Now let's be clear about this.  None of us are required to use NFP.  It's just simply not a Church teaching, at all.  No matter how much you love it and how great you think it is for your marriage, charts and temps and mucus just aren't something you have to keep track of in order to be in good standing with the Church.  You don't need to tell me all the reasons that you think it's super, super awesome.  I've read a ton.  I know how to use two different methods and I understand how it works.  And after much thought and much research and much prayer we don't feel like it's a good fit for our family.

Apparently this makes me a "Providentalist", I guess because there has to be a name for everything.  Maybe it makes me a little bit crazy to outsiders when the topic comes up and I finally admit that we're okay with whatever God sends our way, be it 1 or a dozen.  In our world, Catholic or not, that is kind of shocking.

But really, day to day, it doesn't feel all that crazy.  In fact, it just feels like life.

Sure there are other choices that we could make that would mean that our lives would be very different than they are now or than that they will be in the future.  So far I've never felt like anyone gets less attention than they need, maybe because they're all with me 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  They pretty much get all my attention, all the time.  They even get individual one on one time when other kids are doing others things that completely occupy their attention.

If we had less children they would likely have their own rooms, but as I listen to Maggie and Sadie giggling at night and come in to find Sadie sitting next to Maggie telling her a story about two princess and a prince that just happen to be named Sadie, Maggie and Patrick, I find myself leaning towards having shared spaces even if we were someday plopped down in a house with many, many bedrooms.
If there were less of us I'm sure I'd be more likely to shuttle people around to competitive sports or various lessons, and I'd probably push more for someone or another to be a prodigy in something, but instead, as time has passed I find that the things that seemed important when I was thinking of being a mom are less important.  If a child is interested in something I'll absolutely support that interest, but I'm also not going to let what is essentially a game become the center of our world.  God is that center and I want that to be clear in our days and in their structure.

I have heard it said, plenty of times, that God gave us brains and that we should use them to avoid (insert serious horrible thing that might happen) so we can certainly us them to avoid pregnancy.  And we can use them to avoid conceiving, if we have serious reasons.  That option is left open to us.  But it's also absolutely left open to us to not plan these things and to just let them happen in their own time.  And I don't think the comparison with any sort of disaster from a disease to a car accident to playing out in the street and being struck is a good one when thinking of welcoming new life, because the life growing within me isn't a disease or a disaster.

I could worry about the future. I could worry about the number of c-sections I've had.  But I know women who've had 7 c-sections and been fine.  I've had multiple doctors comment that the surgeon that did my first two was brilliant and that the scaring was minimal.  I don't see the point in spending time and energy worrying about future c-sections when there's been no sign of a problem yet.  There could be, yes.  And there might not be.  I'll cross that bridge if we get to it, rather than crossing it a million times in my head before there's ever been a sign of a problem.

After all, it's just a baby (although that too makes me smile to type that as if any baby is ever "just" a baby!).  It's not a disaster or a tragedy.  He or she is a blessing we can wait to meet.  And welcoming this baby is a joy we've been blessed with and is also a part of my particular vocation.  The upcoming birth is an eagerly awaited event with the kids dreaming of what the baby will be like and planning daily what life will be like with this new baby sibling that they can't wait to meet.

And as I look forward I can't help but think that God doesn't give us the graces to meet the future until we get there.  I'm not being asked to be the mom of ten kids right now, and I may never be.  I'm only being asked to be the mom to the ones we have and I've found day by day, that I tend to have only what I need to meet that days challenges.

How the Feast of Saint Martin de Porres Changed my Life

November 3rd has a way of sneaking up on me.  Last year it didn't.  Last year I obsessed over the day... wishing, hoping and praying that it would be Patrick's birthday.  The day before and then all day long on the feast of Saint Martin de Porres I hoped and hoped and hoped.

But we had no such luck.  Patrick was still five days away from joining our family on the outside.  A Saint Martin de Porres feast day baby wasn't to be.

To really understand my attachment to this feast day, you have to go back to November 3rd, 2007.

On that sunny autumn day I had life all mapped out.  Paul and I had been married for a little over a year and we'd been scrimping and saving. We had big plans.  In January we would be leaving on a backpacking trip around the world.  Two years of hiking and traveling and seeing all that we could see.  Before the trip, however, we were going to Israel on pilgrimage.

The night before we left we drove to the town that the airport was in.  I'd been sick for a couple weeks, with some nasty combination of the flu and a cold.  The cold was gone but I was still pretty sick and I just couldn't kick the bug.  We stopped at Target to pick up a few things for the trip and on impulse I bought a pregnancy test.

An hour later we drove back to the store and I bought five more.

They all instantly showed a dark positive line.  And in that moment we discovered that we were already parents.

Looking back it's funny how shocked I was.  Oh, we'd always talked about having a big family, but it was something that was always far off in the future, when all those other things that had seemed so important were completed.  We'd have babies after we traveled the world and came home and Paul went to graduate school.  He'd graduate and get a good job and a house and babies would naturally follow.

I'd kept trying to map it out, but it never really worked.  I was a list maker back then, in the days when I still had time to make lists.  If I realistically wrote down how long it would be before we'd be ready than kids were relegated to the far off distant future.  I'd shake my head and try to re-crunch the numbers.  It seemed unlikely that we'd have many kids if my math was right.  There was no way we'd be ready for at least another decade.  And my reasons?  They felt seriously serious.

And suddenly we were standing there, staring at a little row of tests, already parents.  There was a little life growing within me. (Paul would likely want me to write that he had suspected it for weeks... I was eight weeks pregnant when I took the test).

That trip to Israel was the sort of pilgrimage I've never imagined.  It was a challenging ten days.  Our waking hours were packed full as we were shuffled from site to site, walking in the places that Jesus had walked and taught and prayed.  And I was sick.  I was sick and hormonal and short tempered.  I almost punched a tour guide who tried to grab my arm and keep me from following our guide at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  I was exhausted but unable to sleep at night and was trying not to be sick on the bus during the days.  I only knew where we were about 25% of the time, because most of the time the chant going on in my head was "don't get sick, don't get sick, don't get sick.. I just want to lay down..." and those echoing thoughts droned everything out.

It was the experience of a lifetime, which I look back on far more fondly in retrospect.

Even then I didn't know how drastically life had really changed, nor did I suspect how wonderful this change, this new plan which God had in store for us, would be.

I was overwhelmed by the idea of a baby.  I'd never even changed a diaper.  So I did what I always do when met with a new challenge and began to read.  By the time Sadie came along I'd ever book and parenting magazine I could get my hands on.

Two years later I took another test on a brisk autumn day.  By then my point of view had shifted.  Baby's don't need much.  We had talked about it and he hoped that we would be able to take the blessings that God was sending our way as they came.  The test came back with two little lines.  Later I would glance at a calendar and realize that it happened to be November 3rd and it would occur to me that November 3rd was the day that we'd left to begin our journey to Israel and that this day and it's saint was pretty special to our growing family.

Which is how I became acquainted with Saint Martin de Porres and how he became our family's patron saint.

This morning I almost didn't make it to Mass. With all the last minute mini disasters conspiring against us I was nearly in tears by the time I managed to shuffle the kids out the door.  Yet we made it.  And I'm so grateful that we did.  Because today I feel especially grateful for all of the unexpected surprises that God has sent our way.  Today especially I can't help but realize that the plans that he has for our family are what my soul needs far more than any carefully plotted road map that I've come up with on my own.

The Family Rosary: Back to Stay!

"The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin…If you desire peace in your hearts, in your homes, and in your country, assemble each evening to recite the Rosary. Let not even one day pass without saying it, no matter how burdened you may be with many cares and labors."

-Pope Pius XI

"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary: either they will give up sin or they will give up the Rosary"

-Bishop Hugh Doyle

Tonight we reinstated the family rosary in our home.

We really had never planned to stop praying each night as a family before bedtime. But when Maggie came along it often just seemed easier to split Maggie and Sadie up at bedtime and have one of us take Maggie downstairs while the other stayed upstairs with Sadie. And since I was usually upstairs in the dark bedroom with Sadie (and that is Sadie's special cuddle time each day!) it was just too easy to fall asleep while praying. Thus would begin the rounds of waking and praying and falling back to sleep only to wake up again and give it another try...

The other factor that played a role in the elimination of our family prayer time was the fact that Paul was being scheduled for the evening shift pretty frequently lately, and so he wasn't home at bed time. We could have tried mornings, but I never really gave mornings much consideration because we're usually hurrying so much as it is.

Paul's schedule seems to be changing though. We found out yesterday that he works mornings this week (for the most part anyways!). While we hadn't talked about it much, it was a part of our day that we both really missed.

And so it is back and I am committed to making sure it remains, the prayer at the center of our everyday lives, regardless of busy schedules and schedule changes.